Embroidered Painting:Research Of Chinese Traditional Jiangnan Embroidery

Embroidery is a traditional craft that belongs to women exclusively. It occurs notonly in a workshop, but more commonly in a family, which makes sure the leisure,pure, free and quiet environment of embroidery, yet serves also to limit theinnovation and development of traditional embroidery. As a genre of femaleneedlework, embroidery was not recognized by the art world for a long time.There was a perennial lack of theoretical interest in the research field, and the artform, was all but ignored by generations of cultural historians. In fact, in the longcourse of development, in addition to the practical, decorative and technicalaspects, Chinese traditional embroidery has also maintained close connections tocalligraphy and Chinese painting, from the embroidered paintings in the SongDynasty to Gu embroidery in the late Ming Dynasty. Many female embroidererswere described as "needle sages". A number of preserved ancient embroideredpainting pieces present the perfect combination of skills and painting techniqueswith a high artistic research value. We can also discover an intimate connectionbetween embroideries and paintings when we trace the source of Chinesetraditional embroidery.Chinese traditional embroidery in Jiangnan, the area south of the Yangtze Riverhas a long and profound relationship with the embroidered painting tradition,which has always been its most prominent feature. The peak of embroideredpaintings – Gu embroidery was born in the Songjiang area, and had a profoundimpact on the development of Jiangnan embroidery in the Ming and QingDynasties. Ding Pei’s A Compendium Of Embroidery Patterns, the first theoreticalbook written in Chinese on embroidery in the Qing Dynasty, was also born here.This dissertation traces the history of embroidery in the Jiangnan region,focusing on the embroidered painting tradition, Gu embroidery and Ding Pei’sCompendium,from the perspectives of literature review and theoretical analysis,and through comparison of the traceable history of embroideries and paintings,needles and brushes, and the biographies of ancient women who were both goodat painting and embroidery, in order to examine the art historical value ofChinese traditional Jiangnan embroidery, while combining it with a culturalinvestigation of Zhenhu, today’s Suchow embroidery town, in search of someuseful suggestions for its further development.